Quick Guide to FMLA
FMLA stands for the Family Medical Leave Act, and it is arguably one of the most important benefits employees have - it protects you from being fired or disciplined if you need to take an extended absence from your role for up to 12 weeks per year. FMLA does not cover everything and its use can be restricted in weird ways, but it is a very important resource to be aware of if you or your spouse are expecting a child, you are undergoing a major surgery, you need to support a family member who has a serious health condition, you need extended mental health leave (approved by a doctor), you plan to adopt a child, or a myriad of other scenarios. You may need to share some details about the situation with HR but in almost every instance those details will be kept confidential - your supervisor and manager will only be informed that you have been approved for FMLA leave and any details regarding when you’ll be gone. They are allowed to ask you for more details but you are not required to tell them if you don’t want to.
There’s one big caveat to using FMLA and that is that FMLA is unpaid. You will not be initially paid for your time on FMLA unless you have sick, vacation, personal day, holiday leave, or comp time to use. Tempe will not let employees be on unpaid status if they have available time - you will need to use up whatever leave is in your banks before you go on unpaid status (time is processed in the order listed above). With that in mind, you can still get paid in certain circumstances while on FMLA and if out of accrued time. Per the Personnel Rules, “Regular employees may request supplemental family medical leave which provides up to 160 paid hours per calendar year to eligible employees who are on approved FMLA qualifying leave:
(1) for the birth of baby or parental leave including bonding time
(2) for their own non-job related serious health condition or
(3) to care for a spouse, domestic partner, child (including step), or parent with a serious health condition.
To qualify for supplemental family medical leave, the employee must have been out of work for at least 30 consecutive calendar days. The leave will commence on the 31st day and be paid up to the 60th day of the qualifying event.” (Tempe Personnel Rules Section 501B, Subsection 3).
Per the Department of Labor, “Employees are eligible for (FMLA) leave if they have worked for their employer at least 12 months, at least 1,250 hours over the past 12 months, and work at a location where the company employs 50 or more employees within 75 miles.” As long as you are a full time employee with the City of Tempe who has worked for the City for at least a year you are entitled to take FMLA. You may be eligible to take FMLA if you don’t meet these criteria but you may also want to look at whether your leave would be covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) rules on protected leave.
Here are a few other relevant details. FMLA must be requested - it is not automatically given to employees even if they qualify. FMLA leave is federally guaranteed for up to 12 weeks per year - Tempe offers employees the ability to request an extra 5 weeks beyond that (Personnel Rules, Section 503F). If your FMLA leave involves caring for a military service member, you can get up to 26 weeks of FMLA, per year. In addition, none of your time has to be used continuously. You could take 10 weeks off for the birth of a newborn child and then use 7 weeks for medical leave near the end of the year - as long as both meet the FMLA qualifications, that would be fine. Your doctor could write you a letter indicating that multiple periods of FMLA leave may be needed for multiple surgeries and recovery periods - as long as you have the proper paperwork, that would be fine. Your doctor could also indicate you have a recurring illness like chronic migraines that requires occasional days off as needed - as long as you have the proper paperwork, that would be fine.
Finally, every full-time employee is also entitled to 2 extra days of leave if they need to travel out of state for a medical procedure in relation to their FMLA leave (Personnel Rules Section 501B, Subsection 1). This won’t come up too often but could be very helpful if someone is looking at something like getting an expensive procedure done more cheaply in Mexico - as long as you’re taking FMLA leave at the time, you would be entitled to an additional 2 days of leave. I want to be very clear here - the Personnel Rules explicitly ban taking medical leave in conjunction with vacation activities (unless authorized by HR). You will almost certainly be disciplined if you try to take advantage of this resource and secretly use it for a vacation.
If you need to request FMLA leave, you can start the process by filling out this form. A member of Tempe HR will quickly reach out within 5 days to confirm whether or not you’re eligible for FMLA as well as provide additional details and paperwork that will need to be completed. In many instances they may need a note from a doctor confirming that FMLA is needed. More information can be found on this Bridge page - if you have questions about FMLA, that page shows who in HR handles each type of leave.
Eligibility summary from the Department of Labor